The cellphone lifecycle is shortening substantially. It is now just a fact of life. It is so easy in the 'tech world' to whip out a 'I remember when...' story that it's nearly irrelevant about a two-year-old ANYTHING gadget (pc, laptop, phone, tv, etc.)

Most cellphone owners don't want to deal with all that (they are, to quote 'Sam Axe', "a bunch of bitchy little girls") and hop from provider to provider for the next shiny toy whenever they can if they think their current one sucks. Two year contracts and exclusivity are the only thing keeping a good chunk of customers with AT&T.

I had a Motorola phone that ran Windows Mobile and I waited for YEARS for an update and when it finally came I was told, 'not for your model.'

It would probably have been smarter for Apple to release the 4.0 software and have iTunes tell you you can't load it on anything older than a 3GS. People might *****, but the bottom line is that if you want 'bigger-better-faster', you need to buy the new hardware that can support it. It's similar to the Snow-Leopard-on-an-old-Mac situation: you could do it, but you might not like the results.

I _may_ upgrade my wife's 3G to 4.0... but not likely... only if they offer one-way FaceTime. Otherwise, on the open market it goes in September when the iPhone4 has been out for a while and they fix the bugs and she's up for renewal.

Not only is spotlight good for fixing 3G... it seems to have sorted my 3GS.

My 3GS has become unstable and the battery would only last half a day or so (to the point I've carried round my charger). The phone would restart in conversations, and also in general use. Never had any issues liek this with 3.1.3. Tried restoring with no luck.

I've turned off spotlight after the suggestions in this thread (this morning) and after a days use the battery is still at 50%. Something it hasn't done in ages. Maybe if a couple of other 3GS users are experincing similar issues it could be spotlight is bugged in iOS4.

when i get out of the subway from underground, my iphone takes about 5 min to get its signal back. and opening my text msgs sucks because it takes so long to open. a lot of my apps take long to open. my safari browser has got to be the worst one.

My 3g was going slow, it comforting to know that they are looking into it, but why bother. The problems right in front of them. They did not have ios 4 support on the iphone 2g and ipt 1g because the processors couldnt support it, but the 3g has the same processor. Anyone correct me if I am wrong about that, but i think that was pure negligence, anyone agree?

Well apple is pretty much getting interesting on ways about go on doing tings. We the people should start be care full in what we invest our money in. Cauz tings haz away to lose their value as time go by.......

The best way I've found to fix the slowness problem is to just downgrade like everyone else is suggesting.

My gf's 3g got upgraded to iOS 4 by accident and it slowed way down. It was also unjailbroken. I downgraded it back to 3.1.3, jailbroke it, and put all the features she liked from iOS 4 on it from cydia.(thanks 3.x JB community =)). Thing runs nice and crisp now, even Jb'ed.

And downgrading is super easy for 3g, there's a post on this forum already that shows how to do it easy easy:

I followed the directions of the first post in this thread and it worked flawlessly. I know it says 3.1.3 downgrade for a 3gs but the same steps work to go from 4 --> 3.1.x on a 3g.. Just follow the instructions and use the proper 3.1.x firmware image for 3g and it'll work.

Hope that was helpful to the guys looking for opinions instead of garbage from trolls.

Every since i upgraded to the OS4 my phone goes very very very very slow.... I am waiting for apple to ship my iPhone 4 b/c i could not take how slow my phone is now. I tried downgrading my phone to 3.1.2 firmware and it did not work it kept giving me error (1015). Hope apple can release a downgrade for all the users that have the 3g iPhone. That would be great

Originally Posted by Messany

The users forum over at Apple tells the story of the latest concern that should be - and probably is - on the minds of those at Apple. As it turns out, plenty of iPhone 3G owners - and perhaps you're one of them - are greatly disappointed with their decision to upgrade to the new iOS4. Why? It seems more than a few users who have done so now find themselves with an iPhone of "degraded quality" - that is, a device that operates slower and and much less fluidly than before.

One registered user (registered as George Stark) complained: “My iPhone 8Gb 3G is soooo slow after ‘upgrading’ to OS4. Unlocking the phone sometimes takes 5-10 seconds and the home screen icons literally stop converging halfway through and then 2 seconds later, finish off. Other things are ridiculously slow, such as opening and replying to texts. Good one Apple, maybe you want us all to upgrade to the iPhone 4 so that OS4 actually runs at a manageable speed?”

George isn't alone. In fact, Apple is right there with him - at least in terms of possessing a curiosity as to why this is happening on a more frequent basis (although it isn't exactly clear just how widespread this problem is). Apple, according to the folks at Wired, is now looking into the complaints. “We are aware of these reports and we are investigating,” an Apple rep told the publication.

We may not have an official response from Apple for some time, but it's clear to many that the decision to make models prior to the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3gs compatible with iOS4 was ill-advised. As Wired reminds us, the "S" in 3GS stands for "speed." With a substantially slower processor in the iPhone 3G, it's quite possible that iOS4, while "compatible" with the iPhone 3G in theory, may not actually not be such a wise move in practice - at least not if "speed" is a major objective in your iPhone user experience.

Why don't they just make one major update per new phone. That would be better business Imo. New products should have new features not just new specs. Why kill everyones old phones by putting new firmware that does not work well on them. I have not updated but I am sure a window does not pop up and say not recomended this will slow your phone down and ruin everything great about it (the smooth interface)

Sorry if this has been covered already. Have not had time to read all the posts.
After I installed 4.0 on my 3G, it became to slow to be useful. I contacted Apple support, and even though I was out of the tech support period, they tried to help me for roughly 2 hours over three phone calls. As they could not recommend "hacking" it back to 3.1.3, there wasn't anything they could do. They offered me a replacement 3G, which I declined. Then offered to send me a new 3GS for $99. I didn't have the money, so I thanked them for their help and that was that... I thought.
The next day they called me and told me that they would send me a new 3GS for no charge. UNBELIEVABLE!! The Apple rep told me to expect a call later that day from another rep in shipping to set-up delivery. That afternoon the rep called and after running down my case, told me that they were going to send me a new iPhone 4 instead! NO CHARGE! UNBELIEVABLE!.
True to their word, the iPhone 4 arrived and I sent them back my 3G. No new contract either. I in no way demanded anything. I was courtious and so were they. All I ever asked for was help restoring back to 3.1.3. Apple is GOOD.

I've had the same problem with iOS4 on my son's 3G. WAY SLOW! I downgraded it to 3.1.3 and all the problems went away. I've downgraded three other 3G's for other people after they were stuck with iOS4 and hated it too. The phone does'nt have to be jailbroken to do it either. Yes it is possible to downgrade a 3G without sHSH's saved on Cydia or your computer. I've done it more than once. GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND!

You keep getting error 1015 because your baseband is higher than what the 3.1.3 firmware is providing. You can use the method that shminkyboy posted above, and then use libusb and irecovery to boot it up, or you can jailbreak your 3g on 4.0 with redsn0w and downgrade with a 3.1.3 custom ipsw from pwnagetool/sn0wbreeze like i did and you wont get that error at all

I agree 100%
restoring to ios4 was a bad idea
phone is very slow
with many bugs

apple needs to start testing their operating systems alot more
before the rush out their firmwares

Apples just trying to take the easy way out all the time
by inheriting there past operating systems and just trying to make stupid little changes without thinking or testing ahead to see what works and what doesnt work that well

in my experience it seems like with the multitasking always running programs even in the background
its eating up all the Ram